THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 9, 1995 TAG: 9504070186
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PATRICIA HUANG, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
When Marilyn Kidwell passes by the southwest corner of Cedar Road and Battlefield Boulevard, she can't help but peek over at the partially hidden site of two pre-Civil War graves there.
The gray tombstone with its faded inscription for a mother and son received public attention last month when the landowner, William W. Old, proposed relocating it.
``I never knew they were there all this time . . . and now whenever we drive by we always look and say, `Yep, there they are,' '' said Kidwell, a local genealogist, who is researching the family line of those buried at the gravesite.
Enclosed by a small, rusted iron fence, the 1815 grave of Martha Allmand and the 1852 grave of her son, Harrison Allmand, have remained on the still-untouched grassy acre of land at the bustling Great Bridge intersection.
Shaded by large trees on property elevated slightly from the road, the old Allmand graves lie within view of a nearby 7-Eleven convenience store, gas stations and fast food restaurants.
They are the oldest of 23 graves that once occupied the area. The other graves were relocated in 1976 to Chesapeake Memorial Gardens, where the Allmand graves also are expected to go. Among the other graves were the ancestors of the Olds, Wilsons, Northerns and Butts, some of Chesapeake's most prominent families.
But it isn't obvious who the Allmands were. To Kidwell, it is another family history to crack.
In her Woodards Mill home, she began plugging bits of 180-year-old data into her computers, using CD-ROM discs and other sources of modern-day technology.
Kidwell, who began dabbling in the field about six years ago, even sent away to several places for information on the Allmands, including The Genealogical Society of Utah, the world's largest archive of records and an organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Out of curiosity, she scoured city records, copied wills and began plotting the Allmands' family tree to discover more about the two souls buried for over a century at the Great Bridge corner.
``You find paperwork, and you just keep documenting. And every piece of paperwork leads to another clue,'' Kidwell explained, as she rifled through stacks of notes and pages in binders cluttering her desk.
``It's like a puzzle that you know has missing pieces,'' she said. ``You start turning couch cushions over or looking under the corner of carpets for those missing pieces.''
The faded inscription on the tombstone was the first clue. It reads, ``Here lie the remains of Mrs. Martha Allmand who died in Norfolk, the 11th of Feb. 1815, aged 55 years, and of her only son Harrison Allmand, Jr. who died at the same place, July 5th 1852, aged 62 years.''
According to Virginia's Will Book III, Martha was married to Edmund Allmand when he died in 1795. He left the plantation to his son Edmund, Jr. and ordered that the silver he left behind be cut into spoons for Harrison.
The reason that Harrison Jr. doesn't take the name of his mother's last husband, Kidwell said, is because records show that Martha Allmand was married three times. Her second husband appears to be a Harrison Allmand from Nansemond County, now Suffolk County.
``I think that Edmund was Harrison's brother. . . . It wasn't uncommon back then to marry your brother's wife if he died,'' she said. ``Unfortunately, there are no records for Nansemond County before the war because they were all destroyed.
Another hurdle for genealogists, Kidwell said, is consistent spelling. During her search she found ``Allmand'' spelled four different ways.
``These (names) are only as good as the way the clerk thought they should be spelled,'' she said, pointing to pre-1790 census information that spelled the name ``Almond.''
But for Kidwell, deciphering the information is all part of the mystery and fun. Kidwell, who volunteers her time as a family history worker for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Scarborough Drive, sometimes spends 40 hours a week doing research at her home for herself and for friends who want to locate living relatives.
Kidwell has traced her husband's family back to the year 775 and her own family back to Loyalists who fought in the Revolutionary War.
``My children say I'm obsessed. . . ,'' she said ``But the thing about genealogy is it makes you really appreciate what we have today.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by STEVE EARLEY
Marilyn Kidwell, genealogist, visits two pre-Civil War graves that
have sparked her curiosity.
by CNB